Method and system for identifying location of a touched body part

ABSTRACT

A method and system for identifying location of a touched body part. The method includes initializing a tracking system for monitoring travel of a pointer useful for indicating a touching operation, wherein the touching operation is performed on a body part. In addition, the method includes monitoring the travel of the pointer from a predetermined first location to a second location, wherein the second location coincides with a touch endpoint on a body part; and identifying the location of body part that was touched by the pointer.

PRIORITY PARAGRAPH

This application is a divisional of and claims priority to U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/249,382 filed Sep. 30, 2011 entitled “Method andSystem for Identifying Location of a Touched Body Part”, the disclosureof which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present disclosure relates generally to identifying a body part thatmay be ailing. More specifically, the disclosure relates to trackingmovement of a pointer as the pointer travels to an ailing body part.

BACKGROUND

For ages medical personnel have inquired of a person that is ill orinjured, “Where does it hurt?” Modem technology can now provide apicture of a body for identifying a body part where an ailment occurs.For example, an image of a body or body type may be displayed on asmartphone's display screen. In this particular case, the displayedimage has to be touched by an individual. Specifically, an image of ahuman body is displayed; thereafter, a user identifies a specific bodypart on the image that the user believes contains his ailment. Thisapproach requires several advanced steps by a user, for example,launching an image for display, identifying the location of the bodypart in the image that the user wants to identify, and then correctlyidentifying the ailing body part. In addition, an inherent amount ofimage processing that requires large amounts of data and data analyzingis subject to a system of this kind.

Accordingly, there is a need for a method and system for identificationof touch to a body part.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

The accompanying figures, where like reference numerals refer toidentical or functionally similar elements throughout the separateviews, together with the detailed description below, are incorporated inand form part of the specification, and serve to further illustrateembodiments of concepts that include the claimed invention, and explainvarious principles and advantages of those embodiments.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a networked system in accordance with someembodiments.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a method of identifying location of a touchedbody part in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary illustration of a dynamically changing userinterface in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 4 is an exemplary illustration of the dynamically changing userinterface of FIG. 3 on a wearable device.

Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures areillustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily beendrawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements inthe figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help toimprove understanding of embodiments of the present invention.

The apparatus and method components have been represented whereappropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only thosespecific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments ofthe present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with detailsthat will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the arthaving the benefit of the description herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Described herein is a method for identifying location of a touched bodypart. The method includes initializing a tracking system for monitoringtravel of a pointer useful for indicating a touching operation, whereinthe touching operation is performed on a body part. In addition, themethod includes monitoring the travel of the pointer from apredetermined first location to a second location, wherein the secondlocation coincides with a touch endpoint on a body part; and identifyingthe location of body part that was touched by the pointer.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a networked system 100 that can beimplemented internally in a wearable device. System 100 includes severalcomponents for operability. The described components are not anexhaustive list and are not intended to be limited to those describedherein. Instead, the described components provide enlightenment by wayof example of communicatively coupled components that are useful andcapable of accomplishing the method described herein. Along these lines,a processor 110 is shown that may have a dual core processor, or aquad-core processor, or greater to perform algorithmic operations, datacollection and analysis, for example. Processor 110 representsprocessing power and thus may be multiple processors communicativelycoupled or networked together. The networked computers can exist in acloud-type environment involving several servers. Processor 110 may alsobe referred herein as a controller that manages the network andelectrical signals used by system 100.

Processor 110 in FIG. 1 receives electrical input signals from one ormore sensors 120. Sensors 120 monitor the external or ambient conditionsof a wearable device and the user's interaction with the wearabledevice. Several different types of sensors may be employed to monitorlocation, audio, speed, environment, device operational mode, proximityof the wearable device to the user, and activity of the wearable deviceuser. These sensors can include a camera, a proximity sensor, amicrophone, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a galvanic skin responsesensor, a temperature sensor, a visible light sensor, a touch sensor, acontact sensor, a wireless sensor, a pressure sensor, and ultrasonicsensor, an altitude sensor, and gesture detection sensors.

Processor 110 is also communicatively coupled to a user interface 130that can be deployed on the wearable device. User interface 130 providesan input interface for the user of the wearable device to interact withthe processor 110 and provide data to the processor 110. For exampleuser interface 130 may be a touchscreen capable of input from a fingeror a stylus. The touchscreen may be resistive or capacitive and mayinclude electrophoretic components. User interface 130 may be a keyboardas well; and can be qwerty-type or can include another layout like T-9,for example. Alternatively, user interface 130 may employ both akeyboard and a touchscreen.

User interface 130 works cooperatively with display 160 and processor110. Display 160 can be either an LED, LCD, AMOLED, or inorganic LEDdisplay, for example. Display 160 provides resolution, brightness andcontrast capabilities to the wearable device.

Processor 110 also is communicatively coupled or networked to a storagedevice 140. Storage device 140 can be internal or remote from thewearable device or may be temporarily connected as in the case of a USBflashdrive, for example. Storage device 140, as shown, includes anapplication storage sector 142, a lookup table or database sector 144,and a cache memory sector 146. All or part of memory or storagefunctions can be remote or alternatively onboard.

Applications storage sector 142 works cooperatively with the userinterface 130 through the processor 110 via a communication network.Applications storage sector 142 can store applications that may havebeen downloaded by the user or that may have been already installed onthe wearable device by the manufacturer or other third party entity. Theapplications can enable a user of the wearable device to assess theirlocation, their date and time, and their contact information in additionto their current wellness condition.

To assess current wellness conditions, a lookup table 144 or databasecan be employed to store known wellness conditions that may includeailments, injuries, rashes, user history profile, medical profile, orother medical assessments that would normally be found in a medicaldictionary or online medical website. A cache memory 146 enables quickretrieval of the stored information that has either been input by theuser or that has been requested by the user.

System 100 also employs a transceiver 150 that enables transmission andreception of communication signals such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellularsignals, including 4G LTE and 3G.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a method 200 of identifying location of atouched body part. Upon starting or launching the instruction set orapplication, operation 210, of method 200, initializes a pointertracking system. The pointer tracking system may employ a gyroscope, anaccelerometer, or positioning software for tracking a pointer's movementor gesture making ability. The pointer can be a hand, an arm, a finger,a foot, a toe, a nose, a tongue, a head, or a mechanical pointingdevice, or other means of indicating or communicating an ailment orwellness condition. For example, an armless individual may learn to winka number of times to communicate. A CCD or CMOS sensor or imager can beemployed to count the number of winks or blinks of the armless user ofthe wearable device. The pointer can also be wielded by the user of thewearable device or another person.

Specifically, operation 220 in one embodiment monitors travel of pointerto a touch endpoint on or near a body part. The monitoring operation mayinvolve tracking the location, rotation, acceleration, deceleration,tilts, pitch, yaw, sudden speed changes, orientation, and speed of thepointer as it moves from a starting point to an endpoint. The pointermay be voice implemented and its movement voice-controlled as well.

Operation 230 identifies location of touched part after the pointer hasreached its endpoint. End point is detected by one or a combination ofabove sensors. Operation 230 may incorporate an imager or microphone orother sensor for identifying specific body part. This could be amulti-step process. First step is to identify a general area such as thechest region, then user interface guides user to zoom in and touch aspecific chest location, e.g., the heart region after confirming initialchest selection.

Optionally, one or more additional operations may be implemented inmethod 200. For example, operation 240 may provide wellness conditionsfor display upon the wearable device. These wellness conditions enable auser of the wearable device to be able to select a particular wellnesscondition, such as an ailment, by touching the display of the wearabledevice or speak the ailment type to the device such as “heart” which isinputted following voice recognition operation.

Operation 250 displays an entire body image or body part image.Subsequent to the display of the wellness condition and the selection bythe user of one or more wellness conditions, a body image appears on thedisplay for the aiding the user in selecting the location of theappropriate part of the body where the wellness condition is mostrelevant. The body image may appear on the display as the user holds hispointer on his wellness condition. As such, the displayed image of thewellness conditions fades and the body image appears.

Operation 260 correlates wellness condition with body image. Thisoperation enables a user to drag and drop a selected wellness conditionupon the displayed body image. Operation 260 may also highlight thetouched body part on the displayed body image. Additionally, operation260 updates the system's memory with the selected body part and wellnesscondition as well as additional information such as identification,encryption, location, date, and time, for example.

Additional optional operations may enable notification of the selectedbody part to be transmitted or displayed upon the wearable device.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary illustration of a dynamically changing userinterface as initially described above. Image 310 is provided on thewearable device as a user interface for selecting wellness conditions.The number of wellness conditions is many and are limited by the size ofthe display and pre- filtering according to regions of a body, forexample. Specifically, a migraine assessment may not be offered forselection of a leg injury because of pre-filtering of wellnesscondition. Accordingly, wellness conditions 312 (cut), 314 (blood), 316(bruise), and 318 (ache) can be selected by the user to best describethe user's current condition. A user of the wearable device may employvoice input or touch or gesture movement to identify a wellnesscondition or select wellness condition from a display screen thatincludes wellness conditions, such as ailments, that may be associatedwith one or more identified body locations by using pre-filteringschemes or algorithms. The pre-filtering enables a list of wellnessconditions to fit a limited screen size for the wearable device.Pressing or saying wellness condition 312 (a cut) highlights theselection.

Holding the selection allows the displayed image to dynamicallytransform or morph into a body image 330. Body image 330 can be genderbased or animal based. Body image 330 includes several locations wherethe selected wellness condition 312 may apply. A user drags and drops320 the selected wellness condition 312 to a specific location or bodypart upon body image 330. Alternatively, in cooperation withpre-filtering one or more individual body parts may be displayed ratherthan an entire body image. The user may be given notification, eitherwritten or audible or both, to indicate and verify the selected bodypart is what they had intended.

Specifically, a user performs a single continuous action for identifyingwellness conditions. The user interface displays a wellness conditionscreen including one or more icons representative of various ailments,for example, (cut, pain, numbness, etc). User touches an individual iconand the user interface switches screen content from ailment types to animage of a body while the user is still touching the icon. Subsequently,the user drags the ailment icon to a specific body location on the newlyappeared body image. That single continuous movement for a user's finger(touch, drag, lift off the icon) identifies the ailment type, itslocation, and updates memory with this new input conditionautomatically.

FIG. 4 is an exemplary illustration of the dynamically changing userinterface of FIG. 3 on the wearable device. Wearable device 400 includesa display screen 402 that incorporates a user interface. By way ofexample, the device may be a wrist worn electronic device, but need notbe so always. The user manipulates the user interface to activate thehealth application. The application may request the user to “show mewhere it hurts”. The user moves his hand with the wrist worn device tohis chest. Sensors in the device (camera, gyroscope, accelerometer, etc)and track the motion of the hand and detect where the user is touching.By tracking the movement, the user interface can determine which part ofthe body the user intends to indicate.

In one instance, the user interface of the wearable device is a displayof wellness conditions. In another instance, the user interface of thewearable device is a display of a body image. The user interface of thewearable device may dynamically change from one user interfacedisplaying one or more images to another user interface that displays adifferent set of images.

Advantageously, there is no need for several screens to be consecutivelydisplayed; and a single action gesture may be used to identify awellness condition and location of an associated body part relevant tothe wellness condition.

More than one wellness condition may exist for a user. For example, auser may experience an ache in their jaw at one moment in time andnumbness in one arm later in time. The user then can select bothconditions and have them stored for later derivation.

In the foregoing specification, specific embodiments have beendescribed. However, one of ordinary skill in the art appreciates thatvarious modifications and changes can be made without departing from thescope of the invention as set forth in the claims below. Accordingly,the specification and figures are to be regarded in an illustrativerather than a restrictive sense, and all such modifications are intendedto be included within the scope of present teachings.

The benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any element(s) thatmay cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become morepronounced are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essentialfeatures or elements of any or all the claims. The invention is definedsolely by the appended claims including any amendments made during thependency of this application and all equivalents of those claims asissued.

Moreover in this document, relational terms such as first and second,top and bottom, and the like may be used solely to distinguish oneentity or action from another entity or action without necessarilyrequiring or implying any actual such relationship or order between suchentities or actions. The terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “has”,“having,” “includes”, “including,” “contains”, “containing” or any othervariation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, suchthat a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises, has,includes, contains a list of elements does not include only thoseelements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherentto such process, method, article, or apparatus. An element proceeded by“comprises . . . a”, “has . . . a”, “includes . . . a”, “contains . . .a” does not, without more constraints, preclude the existence ofadditional identical elements in the process, method, article, orapparatus that comprises, has, includes, contains the element. The terms“a” and “an” are defined as one or more unless explicitly statedotherwise herein. The terms “substantially”, “essentially”,“approximately”, “about” or any other version thereof, are defined asbeing close to as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, and inone non-limiting embodiment the term is defined to be within 10%, inanother embodiment within 5%, in another embodiment within 1% and inanother embodiment within 0.5%. The term “coupled” as used herein isdefined as connected, although not necessarily directly and notnecessarily mechanically. A device or structure that is “configured” ina certain way is configured in at least that way, but may also beconfigured in ways that are not listed.

It will be appreciated that some embodiments may be comprised of one ormore generic or specialized processors (or “processing devices”) such asmicroprocessors, digital signal processors, customized processors andfield programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and unique stored programinstructions (including both software and firmware) that control the oneor more processors to implement, in conjunction with certainnon-processor circuits, some, most, or all of the functions of themethod and/or apparatus described herein. Alternatively, some or allfunctions could be implemented by a state machine that has no storedprogram instructions, or in one or more application specific integratedcircuits (ASICs), in which each function or some combinations of certainof the functions are implemented as custom logic. Of course, acombination of the two approaches could be used.

Moreover, an embodiment can be implemented as a computer-readablestorage medium having computer readable code stored thereon forprogramming a computer (e.g., comprising a processor) to perform amethod as described and claimed herein. Examples of suchcomputer-readable storage mediums include, but are not limited to, ahard disk, a CD-ROM, an optical storage device, a magnetic storagedevice, a ROM (Read Only Memory), a PROM (Programmable Read OnlyMemory), an EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory), an EEPROM(Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) and a Flashmemory. Further, it is expected that one of ordinary skill,notwithstanding possibly significant effort and many design choicesmotivated by, for example, available time, current technology, andeconomic considerations, when guided by the concepts and principlesdisclosed herein will be readily capable of generating such softwareinstructions and programs and ICs with minimal experimentation.

The Abstract of the Disclosure is provided to allow the reader toquickly ascertain the nature of the technical disclosure. It issubmitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpretor limit the scope or meaning of the claims. In addition, in theforegoing Detailed Description, it can be seen that various features aregrouped together in various embodiments for the purpose of streamliningthe disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted asreflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments require morefeatures than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as thefollowing claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than allfeatures of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims arehereby incorporated into the Detailed Description, with each claimstanding on its own as a separately claimed subject matter.

What is claimed is:
 1. A wrist-wearable computing device comprising: aprocessor, the processor located within the wrist-wearable computingdevice and configured to cause the wrist-wearable computing device to:identify, using a tracking system that is located within thewrist-wearable computing device, a location on a body of a user wearingthe wrist-wearable computing device, the location being touched by theuser corresponding to a general area on the body of the user; determine,based on the processor executing a pre-filtering algorithm using theidentified location, wellness conditions associated with the generalarea on the body of the user; present, using a display screen that islocated within the wrist-wearable computing device, wellness conditionimages associated with the determined wellness conditions; receive, fromthe user, a selection of one of the wellness condition images, theselection an indication of a particular wellness condition; andtransform, based on the selection and using the display screen, thepresentation of the wellness condition images to another presentation ofbody parts near the general area.
 2. The wrist-wearable computing deviceas described in claim 1, wherein the tracking system includes anycombination of a camera, a proximity sensor, an accelerometer, agyroscope, a temperature sensor, a visible light sensor, a touch sensor,a contact sensor, a wireless sensor, a pressure sensor, an ultrasonicsensor, an altitude sensor, or a gesture detection sensor.
 3. Thewrist-wearable computing device as described in claim 1, wherein theprocessor is further configured to cause the wrist-wearable computingdevice to monitor external or ambient conditions including a location,an audible sound, a speed of the user, an environmental condition, adevice operational mode, a proximity of the wrist-wearable computingdevice to the user, or an activity of the user.
 4. The wrist-wearablecomputing device as described in claim 1, wherein the processor isfurther configured to cause the wrist-wearable computing device toidentify the location of the touched body part using an imager ormicrophone that is within the wrist-wearable computing device.
 5. Thewrist-wearable computing device as described in claim 1, wherein theprocessor is further configured to determine the wellness conditionsbased on a region of the body.
 6. The wrist-wearable computing device asdescribed in claim 1, wherein the wrist-wearable computing device isconfigured to receive the selection of the at least one wellnesscondition image through the display screen receiving a touch from theuser or through a microphone that is within the wrist-wearable computingdevice and receiving audio from the user.
 7. The wrist-wearablecomputing device as described in claim 1, wherein the display screen isa Light Emitting Diode (LED) Display, a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), anActive-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode (AMOLED) Display, or aninorganic LED display.
 8. A wrist-wearable computing device comprising:a processor, the processor located within the wrist-wearable computingdevice and configured to cause the wrist-wearable computing device to:identify, using a tracking system that is located within thewrist-wearable computing device, a location of a touched body part on abody of a user wearing the wrist-wearable computing device; determine,based on the processor executing a pre-filtering algorithm using theidentified location, wellness conditions; present, using a displayscreen that is located within the wrist-wearable computing device,wellness condition images associated with the determined wellnessconditions; receive, from the user, a selection of one of the wellnesscondition images; correlate, based on a drag and drop operationperformed by the user on the display screen, a body part to the selectedwellness condition; and update, using the processor, a memory devicethat is located within the wrist-wearable computing device informationthat indicates the correlated body part and the selected wellnesscondition associated to the selected wellness condition image.
 9. Thewrist-wearable computing device as described in claim 8, wherein thetracking system includes any combination of a camera, a proximitysensor, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a temperature sensor, a visiblelight sensor, a touch sensor, a contact sensor, a wireless sensor, apressure sensor, an ultrasonic sensor, an altitude sensor, or a gesturedetection sensor.
 10. The wrist-wearable computing device as describedin claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured to cause thewrist-wearable computing device to monitor external or ambientconditions including a location, an audible sound, a speed of the user,an environmental condition, a device operational mode, a proximity ofthe wrist-wearable computing device to the user, or an activity of theuser.
 11. The wrist-wearable computing device as described in claim 8,wherein the processor is further configured to cause the wrist-wearablecomputing device to identify the location of the touched body part usingan imager or microphone that is within the wrist-wearable computingdevice.
 12. The wrist-wearable computing device as described in claim 8,wherein the processor is further configured to determine the wellnessconditions based on a region of the body.
 13. The wrist-wearablecomputing device as described in claim 8, wherein the wrist-wearablecomputing device is configured to receive the selection of the wellnesscondition image through the display screen receiving a touch from theuser or through a microphone that is within the wrist-wearable computingdevice and receiving audio from the user.
 14. The wrist-wearablecomputing device as described in claim 8, wherein the display screen isa Light Emitting Diode (LED) Display, a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), anActive-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode (AMOLED) Display, or aninorganic LED display.
 15. The wrist-wearable computing device asdescribed in claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured todirect the wrist-wearable computing device to transmit a notification ofthe selected body part that is correlated to the selected wellnesscondition.
 16. A wrist-wearable computing device comprising: acomputer-readable storage medium that is located within thewrist-wearable computing device, the computer-readable storage mediumstoring a health application that, upon execution by a processor that islocated within the wrist-wearable computing device, directs thewrist-wearable computing device to: request, through a user interfacethat is located within the wrist-wearable computing device, a userwearing the wrist-wearable computing device to touch a location on abody of the user; identify, using a tracking system that is locatedwithin the wrist-wearable computing device, one or more body parts nearthe touched location; determine, based on the processor executing apre-filtering algorithm using the touched location, wellness conditionsassociated with the one or more body parts; present, using a displayscreen that is located within the wrist-wearable computing device,wellness condition images associated with the determined wellnessconditions; receive, from the user, a selection of one of the wellnesscondition images; transform, based on the selection and using thedisplay screen, the presentation of the wellness condition images toanother presentation of the one or more body parts; and receive, fromthe user, a selection of one of the one or more body parts, theselection correlating the selected wellness condition to the selectedbody part.
 17. The wrist-wearable computing device as recited in claim16, wherein the health application, upon execution by a processor,further directs the wrist-wearable computing device to present a bodyimage on the display of the device, the body image associated with thelocation.
 18. The wrist-wearable computing device as recited in claim16, wherein user interface includes the display screen.
 19. Thewrist-wearable computing device of claim 16, wherein thecomputer-readable storage medium includes a flash memory.
 20. Thewrist-wearable computing device of claim 19, wherein thecomputer-readable storage medium is in an application storage sector ofthe flash memory.
 21. The wrist-wearable computing device of claim 20,wherein the health application, upon execution by a processor, furtherdirects the wrist-wearable computing device to request, through the userinterface, the user to input a location of the user, a date and time, orcontact information of the user.